Konrad Kording

Konrad Kording

@kordinglab.bsky.social

@Penn Prof, deep learning, brains, #causality, rigor, http://neuromatch.io, Transdisciplinary optimist, Dad, Loves outdoors, 🦖 , c4r.io

14.7K followers581 following1.3K posts

Konrad Kording reposted

anshsoni.bsky.social
@anshsoni.bsky.social

We're looking for nominations for a speaker series hosted by the Kording lab @ Penn in Spring 2027! Nominations (including self-nominations) can be made through the attached form.

docs.google.comKording Lab Speaker Nominations (Spring 2027)The Kording Lab at the University of Pennsylvania is organizing a speaker series for Spring 2027! The goal is to invite primarily early-career researchers in computational neuroscience, machine learni...

Konrad Kording reposted

megan peters 🧠
@meganakpeters.bsky.social

We are hiring at @neuromatch.bsky.social ! Come join us to help build the Computational Behaviour course!!

Neuromatch@neuromatch.bsky.social

Neuromatch is hiring 2 Curriculum Specialists for Computational Behaviour! ➡️ Position description: neuromatch.io/wp-content/u... 🙋 Apply here: airtable.com/appBGDTJHkIq... Please share in your networks! #ComputationalNeuroscience #CollectiveBehaviour #NonprofitJob

Konrad Kording reposted

Berna Devezer
@devezer.bsky.social

tbh i had no idea we had metrics to evaluate peer review. if we knew what it should be like, we'd have already done a better job at it. but i have faith we can goodhart our way out of every problem, with or without ai.

Jan Kabatek 🇺🇦@jankabatek.com

Gary King just dropped a study showing that AI peer reviews now dominate human peer reviews on every metric they tested. gking.harvard.edu/peerless/

gking.harvard.eduAI Article Reviews Dominate Human Peer Reviews at Their Best: Evidence and Policy Choices | Gary KingWe show that AI-generated article reviews are now better, by every measure we could construct, than reviews written by well-compensated human experts and judged to be of unusually high quality by jour...

Konrad Kording reposted

Nic 💀 "skull" 💀 Dav
@nicholdav.bsky.social

Writing something up, and reading this + re-reading Mensh & @kordinglab.bsky.social's: journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... The new paper has steps to follow, helps my ADD brain. The older paper helps me keep my eyes on the prize. I feel like many researchers need these, like, now more than ever

journals.plos.orgTen simple rules for structuring papers
John M. Drake@jdrakephd.bsky.social

Newly expanded version of my guide to scientific writing -- known as the “15 steps” -- published in PLOS Computational Biology. Special thanks to Éric Marty for creating a fantastic visualization. Check it out: journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... #ScientificWriting #PLOSComputationalBiology

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

I wrote a super dynamic AI/LLM explainer webpage. Not public yet (don't yet know if it would bankrupt me and having some other constraints). Anyone willing to give it a try and give me some feedback? Mostly looking for feedback from the non-experts. Chat me if interested.

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Cool cool. Let’s not obsess about dimensionality. Good motto in a 1/f world!

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social

I fear that placing too much emphasis on a specific interpretation of dimensionality, or treating dimensionality as an end-all quantification of some aspect of neural computation, may lead us down the wrong path, writes @mattperich.bsky.social. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/neural-dynam...

thetransmitter.orgDimensionality—neuroscience’s red herring?Placing too much emphasis on a specific interpretation of dimensionality may lead neuroscience down the wrong path.

Konrad Kording reposted

Peter Tennant
@pwgtennant.bsky.social

Does the new shingles vaccine (Shingrix) protect against cardiovascular disease (CVD)? Yes, according to a new 'natural experiment' study in @natmed.nature.com. But the truth is sadly far less convincing! Pull up a chair and let's examine another peer review failure in a Nature journal. 1/10 🧵

Konrad Kording reposted

Community for Rigor
@comm4rigor.bsky.social

🎉 We are excited to welcome Katie Corker as a featured speaker at C4R26! 💬 "Strengthening Rigor Through Open Research and Evaluation" 📅 September 29, 11:30 am ET 📍 Philadelphia, PA 🎟️ Free with RSVP 🔗 link in bio #Preprints #OpenScience #Science

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Thread. I have yet to see a proper explanation of how LLMs actually work that is targeted to an informed general audience. So here is an explainer that I put together along with Tim @countzerozzz (inspired by @CIFAR_News LMB discussions).

View full thread
Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

And all of this, is better with better “training“ goals. Wherever truth is defined, push towards this truth (D). And where it is not defined, use LLMs to check answers ("self evaluation", (E))

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

And there you have it. The Old Recipe got extended with ‘inner speech’ + tools + agents + better evaluation into today's interactively ‘thinking’ machines. A great deal of the strengths and weaknesses of today's LLMs can be understood from these component ideas.

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Thread. I have yet to see a proper explanation of how LLMs actually work that is targeted to an informed general audience. So here is an explainer that I put together along with Tim @countzerozzz (inspired by @CIFAR_News LMB discussions).

View full thread
Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Thread. I have yet to see a proper explanation of how LLMs actually work that is targeted to an informed general audience. So here is an explainer that I put together along with Tim @countzerozzz (inspired by @CIFAR_News LMB discussions).

View full thread
Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

The result of this are what is sometimes called large-scale "stochastic parrots". Very impressive text but often somewhat superficial. But these are the old LLMs (think 2022). Innovation was super fast since.

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Thread. I have yet to see a proper explanation of how LLMs actually work that is targeted to an informed general audience. So here is an explainer that I put together along with Tim @countzerozzz (inspired by @CIFAR_News LMB discussions).

View full thread
Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

The real work is done by a core machine, the neural network which is used to generate one word at a time based on its inputs. The probability of each word depends on prior words. And words are chosen one by one according to those probabilities.

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Thread. I have yet to see a proper explanation of how LLMs actually work that is targeted to an informed general audience. So here is an explainer that I put together along with Tim @countzerozzz (inspired by @CIFAR_News LMB discussions).

View full thread
Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

We will use everyday language where possible and mark technical terms in purple. Key is that modern LLMs have a component of making answers (in blue, called "inference") and a component of improving answers (red, called "training").

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

All that LLMs do is convert prompt words into answer words (1). And the old recipe does that with two goals, language imitation (2) and people's rating of answer quality (3). Answers are produced word by word using a neural network.

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Thread. I have yet to see a proper explanation of how LLMs actually work that is targeted to an informed general audience. So here is an explainer that I put together along with Tim @countzerozzz (inspired by @CIFAR_News LMB discussions).

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Hiring for research scientists in expansion chemistry and optical physiology at mindspan.org with @eboyden3.bsky.social, Yongxin Zhao, Xue Han. We will build tools to analyze the human brain. We are into compiling arxiv.org/abs/2603.25713. We are into cutting edge technology.

mindspan.orgMindspan InstituteA non-profit creating and applying tools to characterize the molecules and wiring of the human brain, as well as to interpret how they contribute to brain functions and dysfunctions, openly sharing to...
Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Also hiring/ will be hiring for a good number of other positions. A lot of engineering to scale up expansion, imaging, cutting, tissue handling, microscopy, reconstruction algorithms, compiling etc.

Konrad Kording reposted

Tony Zador
@tonyzador.bsky.social

A companion piece to @kordinglab.bsky.social provocative "Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor? "

Tony Zador@tonyzador.bsky.social

How do you build a brain from a genome? We know a lot about the mechanisms and molecules Here we revisit the algorithmic problem: What kinds of programs can specify a brain within the genome’s information budget and the finite time available for development? stankerstjens.github.io/could-a-comp...

stankerstjens.github.ioCould a computer scientist build a brain?How does a brain wire itself, starting from a single cell, using only the information encoded in a genome? We pose this as an engineering problem.
Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

Great thinking re genetic specification of nervous systems.

Tony Zador@tonyzador.bsky.social

How do you build a brain from a genome? We know a lot about the mechanisms and molecules Here we revisit the algorithmic problem: What kinds of programs can specify a brain within the genome’s information budget and the finite time available for development? stankerstjens.github.io/could-a-comp...

stankerstjens.github.ioCould a computer scientist build a brain?How does a brain wire itself, starting from a single cell, using only the information encoded in a genome? We pose this as an engineering problem.

Konrad Kording reposted

Clément Canonne
@ccanonne.github.io

"We're all worried," as what it means to do research (in my field, Theoretical CS) seems to be shifting, and shifting fast. What to do? Senior researchers must lead by example, knowing that not everything will pan out. What I'm suggesting below may not work everywhere, but here's my own advice: 1/

Konrad Kording reposted

Blake Richards
@tyrellturing.bsky.social

Super cool paper here, showing that the cerebellum has a credit assignment mechanism solving the weight transport problem and giving every P-cell the right error signal! But, could the neocortex be the same? Could it possibly be hard-wired like this? I suspect not... Mystery to solve! 🧠📈 🧪

Reza Shadmehr@rezashadmehr.bsky.social

If an action results in error, each neuron requires an individualized teaching signal that guides change in its output. This is the credit assignment problem of learning. Are there neurons in the brain that can compute such a sophisticated teaching signal? Yes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.orgClimbing fibers encode the gradient of a loss function for the cerebellumNeurons in the brain are often many synapses away from motoneurons, yet if a movement results in error, each distant neuron needs a teacher that considers its specific contribution to production of th...

Konrad Kording reposted

Reza Shadmehr
@rezashadmehr.bsky.social

If an action results in error, each neuron requires an individualized teaching signal that guides change in its output. This is the credit assignment problem of learning. Are there neurons in the brain that can compute such a sophisticated teaching signal? Yes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.orgClimbing fibers encode the gradient of a loss function for the cerebellumNeurons in the brain are often many synapses away from motoneurons, yet if a movement results in error, each distant neuron needs a teacher that considers its specific contribution to production of th...

Konrad Kording reposted

Turan Orujlu
@turanorujlu.bsky.social

UAI 2026 paper: A genetic perturbation can change the connectome, a new policy can rewire economic links between firms. In each case, interventions change the graph itself which standard SCMs treat as fixed. We tackle this in Partially Observed Structural Causal Models (POSCMs).

Konrad Kording
@kordinglab.bsky.social

I think this is importantly work bringing causality closer to reality.

Turan Orujlu@turanorujlu.bsky.social

UAI 2026 paper: A genetic perturbation can change the connectome, a new policy can rewire economic links between firms. In each case, interventions change the graph itself which standard SCMs treat as fixed. We tackle this in Partially Observed Structural Causal Models (POSCMs).

Konrad Kording reposted

Timothy O'Leary
@timothyoleary.bsky.social

I think the difficulty of understanding feedback loops underlies many big debates in science: Origin of life: "genes first" vs "metabolism first" (neither, it's a feedback loop) Development: "nature vs nurture" (neither, it's a feedback loop) Neuroscience: "brain vs behaviour" (you guessed it!)

Konrad Kording reposted

Community for Rigor
@comm4rigor.bsky.social

Registration is now open for C4R26 🎉 Join us Sep 28 to 30, 2026 in Philadelphia for a free conference dedicated to scientific rigor, practical research skills, methodology workshops, and building better science together. Register at c4r.io/conference #ScientificRigor #ResearchTraining

Konrad Kording reposted

Joshua Glaser
@joshuaiglaser.bsky.social

Excited to share this work, led by Andrew Zimnik and Sherry An, from @mchurchland.bsky.social and my labs! www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... 1/2

cell.comSparse component analysis: A method that uncovers separable computations within neural population activityZimnik et al. provide a new, interpretable, unsupervised dimensionality approach for neural population activity. Their approach, sparse component analysis (SCA), reveals the latent factors correspondi...

Konrad Kording reposted

Santa Fe Institute
@sfiscience.bsky.social

Last fall, SFI's John Krakauer was named director of the Centre for Restorative Neurotechnology (CRN) at Lisbon's Champalimaud Foundation, a center he helped create. Krakauer has been connected to Champalimaud for more than a decade, first as a visiting scientist at its Centre for the Unknown.

santafe.eduJohn Krakauer named director of Champalimaud's Centre for Restorative NeurotechnologyLast fall, SFI External Professor John Krakauer was named director of the Centre for Restorative Neurotechnology (CRN) — a center he helped create — at the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon. He takes ...